


The One Where Bucky Barnes Was CP and Proud of It

by togina



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Communism, M/M, pre-WW2 Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-07-30
Packaged: 2018-02-11 02:18:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2049660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togina/pseuds/togina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Communism is about unification, not terror and starvation." Bucky crossed his arms. "We’re fighting for a redistribution of wealth, and power in the hands of people who produce it. What are you doing for the working mothers, Stark? What does your capitalism offer the black man?"</p><p>(Reposted from tumblr.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where Bucky Barnes Was CP and Proud of It

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr [here](http://toli-a.tumblr.com/post/88886435723/the-one-where-bucky-barnes-was-cp-and-proud-of-it). I really have no excuse for this, except that I was reading about people in the city hanging around street corners at night and talking about politics, and I imagined Steve and Bucky loitering around the grown men, reading the papers to each other, and - of course - radicalizing against the corporate bully!

Tony is scanning Bucky’s arm in the workshop-garage when he says: “So, you thought about replacing that star yet, oh assassin for the proletariat?”

And Bucky’s on his feet in less than a second, fists curled and chin lifted. Tony’s still sitting there with a screwdriver, looking confused, and for some reason Steve has dropped his head into his hands and groaned. “You got something against the proles, Stark? Too busy being a bourgeois capitalist pig?”

"Wow." Tony blinks, shocked. "That brainwashing was more effective than I realized."

"Oh no," Steve murmurs, and leaps forward to throw a hand over Bucky’s mouth before he can spit on the Stark heir. "People don’t do that any more, Buck! It’s uncouth."

"That’s because they’ve tricked the workers into selling out their class for a clean shirt and a ticket to the opera.  _You_ remember the company unions. Bet Stark even runs one.”

"Hey, I have a great employee benefits package, Comrade Barnes! My employees … benefit greatly. Just ask Pepper." This time Bucky does manage to spit, but it’s only onto the concrete floor. Tony blinks at Steve, who’s given up and wrapped his arms loosely around Bucky’s biceps, chin resting on one shoulder. "Uh, Cap, aren’t you worried that the Soldier here still seems a bit loyal to Mother Russia?"

"Well -" Steve starts, just as Bucky bares his teeth and growls, "No one said anything about the Soviets! Stalin is no Communist. Didn’t you learn anything in in your fancy, private upper class schools?"

Sam clears his throat, politely cutting in before Tony can wedge his foot farther in his mouth, jabbing the engineer in the ribs with his elbow. “Uh, we learned that Stalin was the head of the international Communist Party?”

"Stalin was a tyrant and a coward." Steve’s eyebrows raise slightly, expression the one of polite interest he wears when Tony goes on his standard rant about finding good Thai food in Brooklyn. "Communism is about unification, not terror and starvation." Bucky crossed his arms. "We’re fighting for a redistribution of wealth, and power in the hands of people who produce it. What are you doing for the working mothers, Stark? What does your capitalism offer the black man?"

Sam falls over on Tony, he’s laughing so hard. “Yeah, Mr. Money Bags, what  _are_ you offering the black man?”

"Is anyone else noticing the brainwashing, here?!" Tony scowls, waves his screwdriver at Bucky. "The, oh hey, this Communist propaganda comes to you courtesy of the Red Room and the very deadly  _Winter Soldier_?”

"I wish it did," Steve mutters, huffing when a metal elbow knocks him a few inches backward. "Bucky’s been fighting for workers’ liberation since the 1927 riots. I think we wallpapered our rooms with the  _Daily Worker_.”

"We wallpapered  _ourselves_ ,” Bucky reminds him. “Newspaper was the best insulation we had, for awhile. And there’s nothing wrong with the  _Worker_. Wonder when that shut down? I miss Liz Flynn’s articles.”

"The 1927 riots?" Sam asks, apparently recovered from laughing hysterically on a disgruntled Stark.

"Sacco and Vanzetti?" Steve raises one eyebrow at Sam and Tony. "Do I need to make a list of things you guys should know about the 20th century? I spent a whole summer listening to the injustice of it all, I could probably recite it for you."

"Oh yeah, punk." Bucky rolls his eyes, turns his head to bite Steve’s jaw. "Because  _I’m_  the one who was leading the charge against global injustice.” Steve’s long-suffering sigh does nothing to hide the pink flush on his cheeks.

Tony rubs his face, saying something into his palms that sounds like, “Gay ninety-year-old Communists. I miss the days when I was the weirdest person in the room.”

"You still haven’t told us your stance on wealth and production," Bucky points out, looking awfully serious for someone getting a hickey from Captain America.

"What happened to, people don’t do things like that in public?" Tony asks Steve, instead, making a memo to have Pepper write him a speech about worker rights and production.

Steve comes up slow, shrugs and smiles when Bucky’s hands lift to cover his own. “Are you trying to repress my class with your bourgeois morality, Stark?” he asks, nuzzling the skin behind Bucky’s ear. “Besides,” he adds, swinging Barnes around and collecting him into the beginnings of a kiss, “It’s been the only way since 1933 to make him stop talking politics.”

"Damn your capitalist ploys," Bucky hisses, but his mouth is already closing over Steve’s, red star on his arm glinting under the workshop lights.


End file.
